One of the long-time disadvantages of medical diagnostic ultrasound, particularly for sonographers, is the cable that connects the scanning probe to the ultrasound system. These cables are long and often thick due to the need to contain many coaxial lines from the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of transducer elements in the probe. As a consequence, these probe cables can be cumbersome to deal with and can be heavy. Some sonographers try to deal with the cable problem by draping the cable over an arm or shoulder for support while scanning. This can lead to repetitive stress injuries in many cases. Another problem is that the probe cable can contaminate the sterile field of an image-guided surgical procedure. Furthermore, these probe cables are rather expensive, often being the most expensive component of the probe. Thus, there is a long-felt desire to rid diagnostic ultrasound of probe cables.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,142,946 (Hwang et al.) describes an ultrasound probe and system which do just that. This patent describes a battery-powered array transducer probe with an integral beamformer. A transceiver sends acquired ultrasound data to an ultrasound system serving as its base station. Image processing and display is done on the ultrasound system.
While a wireless ultrasound probe frees the user of the inconvenience of a cable, there are situations where a cable may be needed or desired for a wireless probe. For example, a cable could be used to recharge the battery in the probe. If the battery runs low during a scanning procedure, a cable could provide the means to power the wireless probe while the procedure is completed. In other instances a user may prefer to have a probe tethered to the ultrasound system for various reasons. A cable may enable a procedure to proceed when the wireless link does not seem to be operating properly. Accordingly it is desirable to have a cable for performing these functions should these situations or circumstances arise.
Published Patent Application WO 2008/146205 A1 (U.S. Ser. No. 60/941,427 (the '427 application)), the teachings of which are incorporated by reference herein, describes a wireless ultrasound probe which is selectively coupled to a host system by a cable. The host system can be used solely to power the wireless probe or recharge the battery of the probe. The host system can also be the system which processes or displays the image data produced by the wireless probe and the cable can be used to provide the image data to the host system by wire in the event of difficulties with the wireless data link.
In an example described in the '427 application, a wireless probe is selectively coupled to the host system cable using a magnetic, hermetically sealed connector system. This connector system provides for a break-away “quick connect-disconnect” connection between the probe and the host system cable.